


three cheers for a sense of stability

by nobody_home



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Everyone Is Alive, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma, blood warning, just a kinda short and sad reflection on shuichi's role in v3, kinda a vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27080188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nobody_home/pseuds/nobody_home
Summary: post-v3 shuichi is very not okay and needs maybe just a little time to be himself again
Relationships: Amami Rantaro/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 45





	three cheers for a sense of stability

shuichi’s fingers trained, wondering maybe for an if and not a when, not when they would stop scribbling with a pen but if they ever would.

he’d been on house arrest, basically, since he’d had a meltdown over a case a few months ago and was deemed unfit for anything but paperwork. rantaro would step in every day at 3:22 p.m. hang his coat on the hook next to the door, ghost his fingers over shuichi’s shoulder and ask if he had a good day.  
shuichi would write in the margins of a notebook he kept on hand, he would track every event he could catch with his eyes. maybe he’d be thrown into another murder mystery and maybe it would finally be of use.  
or maybe he would just sit at his desk for nine hours every day, not even getting up for water, scribbling away at paperwork with a ballpoint pen his uncle hadn’t wanted him to have.  
ballpoint pen marking down into the sheets of paperwork that could lean towards unnecessary but probably most likely a waste of time.

he marked it down in the notebook, 10:54 a.m. hands start shaking and maybe he’ll die of some medical accident and be found, dead next to his notebook tracking every symptom of his demise.

a psychologist ruled it for him, PTSD, he’d gotten tested to cement it but eventually it wasn’t a question.

eventually, when he found himself shaking trying to do the detective work he believed he was made for, molded for perfectly, when he found his eyes gracing a body and falling back into the same trap he thought he escaped, eventually he knew.

rantaro would ghost his shoulder with gentle fingers, floating around shuichi once he got home for the hour that shuichi had to stay and sit at his sad little desk, carved out of a walnut tree and somehow wandering to their apartment in osaka.

11:03 a.m. chest pains

shuichi didn’t think he thought anymore.   
everyone who knew him either coddled him or needed coddling.

he didn’t see the world, he saw his stolen ballpoint pen stabbing the heart of his notebook, he saw his digital clock glowing green numbers that burned into his mind, he saw the piles and piles of paperwork that were only there to give him a false purpose.  
he wouldn’t think, he wouldn’t wonder, his body would carry him, falling against rantaro into bed and whispering an ‘I love you, goodnight’ every night at 10:41 p.m. and rantaro would run a hand through shuichi’s hair and shuichi would wonder, with the bones of his ribs and the ache in his lungs that pressed into his throat, he would wonder with his training fingers pushing ink onto paper and he would wonder with his repeated mantras, he would wonder if they were alive.

kaede would pick up miu and shuichi and drive them to an office every thursday at 2 p.m. inconsistently. shuichi would be led inside forty minutes before miu would, separately, dancing around some issue with words that shuichi knew he was supposed to say.

‘I was trapped in a killing game. I watched everyone die one by one.’

his therapist would ask if he had anything to say to finish up with and shuichi would shake his head, a routine back and forth that always ended in shuichi following him out of the office, sitting down in a chair next to kaede until miu would appear in the hallway and they would drive back.  
always dropping shuichi back into rantaro’s arms and it was so hard to admit that he existed in a world inside his brain that was far removed from reality.

and he was aware how lost he was.

1:22 p.m. shaking stops, chest pain stops, thirsty

shuichi wanted to look his therapist in his eyes and he wanted to say how afraid he was of looking up when rantaro would ghost his fingers over shuichi’s shoulder when he got home.  
how he dreaded seeing his face covered in blood, just another victim.

kaede would never touch a piano, would choke in a discussion of music. the radio was silent on the drive and nobody complained because miu had brought headphones once and played her music too loud and

his therapist scribbled notes on a clipboard every week, offering shuichi a glass of water and asking if he’d tried journaling this week and shuichi would say no “thank you,” and “I haven’t found the ability to put words on paper just yet.” 

shuichi would dig deep with pen and ink and feel the blood seep through the walls and through his skull.  
he couldn’t outrun death and he felt it in him, reaching his hands out in the morning sunlight that peeked its way through the curtains of their bedroom window and studying the form, the skin and tendons and muscle and bone.  
the shape of everything he was supposed to be and the shape of everything that made him fail, remembering dust and blood and fingerprints and crying into his pillow every night wishing he wouldn’t experience tomorrow ever again.

he couldn’t escape his faults, his chipped nails and the power he’d almost had to look at someone without fearing for his life. shuichi would stand at his door and breathe in, steadily, breathing out steadily and rantaro would pull a hat over his head and tell him “it’s okay, dinner will be ready when you’re home.”

1:56 p.m. shaking starts in hands and shoulders

shuichi would hold his hands in his lap tightly and wish he had a pen, wishing he could just scream and cry and lash out instead of feeling like a wooden doll, hollowed out of the life he was supposed to have.

he was supposed to help his uncle help people, he was supposed to be what everyone needed from criminal justice.

skin was draped over muscle and tendon and bone like a blanket and of everyone that he wanted to see, all his eyes found was a corpse, an undead bloodstained hand reaching for him asking for his answer, asking for his power over the truth.   
he crumpled another sheet of waste feeling his lungs freeze, he didn’t want to be what he was supposed to be, he wanted to see rantaro’s eyes, warm and blanketing and gentle and feel warm, live hands on his face, holding him close so he could never be lost again.

shuichi rubbed his eyes, groaning from an ache that was and would continue to be unrelieved, reaching for his notebook with the desperation found from losing, over and over again.

“shuichi? what are you doing?” rantaro smiled

shuichi didn’t want to think shuichi didn’t want to be trapped anymore shuichi didn’t want to be 

“what?”

he wasn’t at his desk, he was… in bed…

“you fell asleep working today. feeling better now?” rantaro’s hand ghosted over shuichi’s shoulder, his head tilted to the side as he waited.

shuichi didn’t know what rantaro was still here for.

if he listened to the show playing on the tv, he didn’t need to think about pink stained sheets.

“ah… no.” 

rantaro’s hand rested on his shoulder, radiating heat, radiating warmth and comfort.

“well, that’s okay. take it slow. tell me when you want dinner, there’s still some leftover from yesterday.”

“okay.” 

what were they doing at this point? what was the purpose of this?

“when’s the last time we had that paris falafel recipe?” shuichi asked, frowning. 

rantaro laughed, shrugging, “maybe two years ago?” 

shuichi hummed, thinking. rantaro’s hand found its way to shuichi’s.

“can we cook some tomorrow?” 

rantaro held shuichi in some weird half-hug half-dance position that shuichi couldn’t not lean into. 

“I missed you.” he whispered, hair tickling shuichi’s face as they fell into each other, offbeat and grounding and alive.  
shuichi thinks this must be the first time the memory of blood can’t push him back into the recesses of his mind.

“I love you.” shuichi whispered back.  
he traced the cool metal of rantaro’s rings, stepping slowly over his own imaginary path and hoping maybe, just today, he didn’t need to track everything with the press of a pen onto paper.  
and he didn’t need to be afraid of the ground falling out beneath him.

and tomorrow, maybe, he would do so again.


End file.
